as i have said twice before, there are too many variables to calculate it

That is relatively true, it depend completely on the degree of preciation\accuracy\reliability desired for the calculation, the higher the degree of preciation desired, the more variables must be considered.

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"a man can surely do what he wills to do, but cannot determine what he wills."

"Normal probability" is no mathematical/ statistical term in English. It isn't at all clear what you mean by its use. The simples interpretation would be: The probability that an n digit number consists of n identical digits.

Assuming that the count starts at '1' - thus excluding series of n zeros - the probability would be 9/99 (9.090909...%) for 2 digit numbers, 9/999 (0.9009009%) for 3 digit numbers, 9/9999 (0.090009%) for four digit numbers and so on.

Of course such a calculation has nothing to do with the posting situation on the forum. It is just the general probability of getting a series of n identical digits for randomly combined n-digit numbers.

You're saying that it's more probable to get a number with at least 3 digits than it is to get a number with at least 4 digits.

Not exactly, I simply say that "yyy" three identical digits number has a low frequency of occurrence, since such number appears only ten times within the the range from 0 to 1000, while "yyyy" a four identical digits number has an even less frequency, since it appears only ten times within the range from 0 to 10,000.

Then you're dealing with two different sets of numbers and the probability can't be directly compared. It's uneven. The series 'xxx' (not zxxx or xxxz) appears exactly 9 times between 1 and 1000, but it also appears only 9 times between 1 and 10,000 which is exactly the same probability as the series 'yyyy' (not 'xyyyy' or 'yyyyx'). You can't make a statement and then make another one under different qualifications and compare them as if everything is equal: That's simply bad math.

Emergence, that's a far more concise explanation of what I was trying to explain a couple of pages ago:

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On the other hand, I believe you're correct in saying that 1111 is somehow different to a number such as 3071. They certainly look different to me. So how are they different?

Many people have pointed out that a random-number generating machine, set to choose a four-digit number, is just as likely to select 1111 as 3071, so in that sense the numbers are equivalent in probability terms.

But, the RNGM would not be as likely to select a number of the form nnnn as a number not of that form. Numbers of that form are rarer and therefore less likely to be selected, and our perceptual systems recognize that fact immediately.

Many people have pointed out that a random-number generating machine, set to choose a four-digit number, is just as likely to select 1111 as 3071, so in that sense the numbers are equivalent in probability terms.

But, the RNGM would not be as likely to select a number of the form nnnn as a number not of that form. Numbers of that form are rarer and therefore less likely to be selected, and our perceptual systems recognize that fact immediately.

Of course such a calculation has nothing to do with the posting situation on the forum. It is just the general probability of getting a series of n identical digits for randomly combined n-digit numbers.

Imagine a more extreme case and be honest with yourself, you are receiving your ID card, and you find out that its serial number is "555555555555555555555"

Then you're dealing with two different sets of numbers and the probability can't be directly compared.

Fine, since post counts within 1 to 999 are much more common than post counts ranging from 1111 to 9999, then the four digit identical digits combination is much more rare.Agreed?

Edit: I am just getting to the above point because no body seem to understand the probability calculation I established previously, I think it needs more fine defining work that I can't accomplish, hoped you didn't need it.

« Last Edit: October 09, 2009, 04:04:37 PM by Master »

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"a man can surely do what he wills to do, but cannot determine what he wills."

I'm sorry, Emergence, I wasn't complaining about your intervention at all, just commenting that it did better than I did in answering for example Zankuu, when he said:

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I find nothing weird about 1111 or any other number for that matter.

A number like 1111 is weird because it's a rare form, and it's more noticeable for that reason.

I still can't find anything wierd about '1111' pertaining to your post count. I went out on a limb and assumed you wouldn't jump from 1110 to 1112. *scratches head* I guess if I rolled one die several times in a row and it landed on '3' each time, I would say to myself, "Hey, look at that, what are the odds?" But the die has no idea what it had rolled on, so the liklihood of it happening again would be just as likely as rolling any other number on the die. That's what I had thought... I could be completely wrong... anyone?

I still can't find anything wierd about '1111' pertaining to your post count. I went out on a limb and assumed you wouldn't jump from 1110 to 1112. *scratches head* I guess if I rolled one die several times in a row and it landed on '3' each time, I would say to myself, "Hey, look at that, what are the odds?" But the die has no idea what it had rolled on, so the liklihood of it happening again would be just as likely as rolling any other number on the die. That's what I had thought... I could be completely wrong... anyone?

Yeah, you've got it. The difference is that the site and the post count does have a memory. It is very much dependent on the posts that came before it. It's like dropping coins in a piggy bank. The bank starts empty and you drop 10 coins into it. If you drop one more coin in there (assuming there's no hole in the bank, and the coins have no real route for escape), the odds that you will then have 11 coins in there is so close to one that no one ever thinks about it any other way. With a RNG, getting the sequence 'yyyy' versus getting any other sequence (wxyz, where at least variable has a different value than the other 3) is unlikely. But if you're counting your way up then the only thing stopping you from getting to 1111 would be to end the count before you get there. So the only thing odds-wise you'd have to bring into play are things that would happen either in Gnu's life or with the internet that might stop him from posting, which would require not only an invasive amount of knowledge but such complex calculations that no human alive could figure it out to any degree of certainty.

So the only thing odds-wise you'd have to bring into play are things that would happen either in Gnu's life or with the internet that might stop him from posting, which would require not only an invasive amount of knowledge but such complex calculations that no human alive could figure it out to any degree of certainty.

Edit: I am just getting to the above point because no body seem to understand the probability calculation I established previously, I think it needs more fine defining work that I can't accomplish, hoped you didn't need it.

Yah.. you know.. it needs.. like.. an actual reason for doing so instead of your mindless pleading.

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"Religious faith is the antithesis to knowledge, it is the opposition to education, and it has to act in animosity against the free exchange of ideas. Why? Because those things are what cause harm to a religions place in society most." - Me

Of course such a calculation has nothing to do with the posting situation on the forum. It is just the general probability of getting a series of n identical digits for randomly combined n-digit numbers.

Imagine a more extreme case and be honest with yourself, you are receiving your ID card, and you find out that its serial number is "555555555555555555555"

ID cards are different from forum posts, because every citizen get issued only one. And 555,555,555,555,555,555,555 is different from 1,111 by multiple orders of magnitude obviously. So there is nothing to compare between noticing a member with 1111 forum posts and an ID card # with 21 consecutive identical digits.

As for honesty: Would i be immensity surprised if i got 555,555,555,555,555,555,555? Sure. Would i think that this is a notable occurrence? Yes. And not only because my countries ID cards have only 10 digit numbers.

How about this: at the time that I read through this thread Gnu had 1555 posts and Master had 555. What are the odds that the last three numbers of two individual posters would be identical? This must be a conspiracy or a sine or perhaps it's a tangent. Pythagoras must be turning in his grave.

Heh-heh. I was just skipping through this thread, wondering why it was in the Pit (and being reminded how deeply weird it was), and I spotted Master's post-count. Didn't spot that mine was exactly a thousand higher.

As an online poker player I have seen many of such calculations and they are all wrong and a logical fallacy. For example, if you get dealt 20 random hands, the probability to get these hands is 1/ (52^20)(51^20). The chance to get dealt 40 aces in 20 hands is much bigger.

I think this TS is acting very childish by insisting how unique 1111 is and it is correctly pointed out that any number between 0 and x is equally likely to occur in a series of numbers ranging from 0 to x and it's probability is 1. The realisation that a specific type of numbers is more easily to recognise does not bear any value.

And this is childish, but since you state that you're kicked out of school for outsmarting your teachers and that your maths and logic is infallible:

Fine people, I am sure that there are people out there who could make the calculation, but I won't wait, I will make it for you and show the point behind the topic:there are four places for integers in this case, each place can only take an integer value from 0 to 9the probability that the first takes exactly "1" is 1/10, the probability for the second place taking exactly 1 is also 1/10, the same for the third and fourth placesNow what is the probability that each place take "1" at the same time giving "1111"?since the value of each place is independent on the other, then the probability of "1111" is (1/10)^4 = 1/10000but we would have the same impression(the same degree of being normal\usual) if the number was "2222" or "3333", i.e all are equivalent, then the probability is nine times the last result, i.e 9/10000(some would ask why not 10/10000, the answer is that "0000" would never appear, so we have 9 equivalent combinations for "1111" instead of 10)that is still too small probability, how could it happen, oh, have we considered the number of trials out of which it happened once? here is the point, many things appear to be weird just because we miss-estimate the actual number of trials, an issue totally related to human memory and recalling system, I didn't take in consideration how often I look at members posts counter, nor how many active members, a man worshiping a caw, will think that the caw often answers his prayers, because when he recalls he doesn't recall the unanswered prayers,(never heard someone saying:"I once prayed and wasn't answered"), that is it, in the same manner one can show that almost everything that people think to be a "miracle" is just the reflection of normal probability of occurrence.

This calculation is wrong. Any four digit number starting with 0 is a three digit number, e.g. 0239=239. The probability to get a 4 digit number consisting of 4 equal digits is 1/1000 using your mathematical and logical method. Of course the probability to get such a number in a series of 10000 numbers remains 9/10000.

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Quote from: George Bernard Shaw

The fact that a believer is happier than a skeptic is no more to the point than the fact that a drunken man is happier than a sober one